Roosevelt
Blvd.is a better connector between Beltline and 99, it
serves northwest Eugene neighborhoods better than WEP could. Some
local traffic would use Roosevelt, regional through traffic would bypass
on Belt Line.

The ideal location for Eugene's new hospital
is Second and Garfield, which is relatively central for Eugene's
population. The site is large enough for a sizeable complex.
It has good access via 6th and 7th Avenues, River Road, Northwest
Expressway, Roosevelt Blvd and Highway 99. Spending a half million
or so to extend Second Street westward to Highway 99 would facilitate
better access to this location (there is no need to build the WEP
to do this).

Potential Location:

Second and Garfield

Delta Highway

EWEB

Glenwood

Flood Risk

Minimal

Medium

Moderate to High

Severe (especially during dam failure)

Nearby roads

6th and 7th avenues, near
West 11th, River Road, Garfield and Chambers, Roosevelt Blvd., Highway
99 (extend Second Street to 99 to complete access, no need to build
WEP)

The STIP list also requests the start of a study for widening Belt Line
from Coburg Road to River Road. This would be another huge subsidy to
the "heart transplant" - the relocation of Peace Health hospital
to the McKenzie River floodplain. Tens of millions, at least, would be
spent to widen the Belt Line to feed traffic to Peace Health.

This widening would require the reconstruction of the Delta Highway,
Norkenzie and Gilham overpasses, since none of these bridges have room
for more lanes on Belt Line. In addition, several places lack sufficient
right-of-way for more lanes, so there would be major impacts on the residential
neighborhoods between Coburg Road and Delta, and on the businesses between
the river and River Road. It will be interesting to see the political
fallout when pavement-at-any-cost politicians such as (outgoing) Mayor
Torrey and Councilor Pape tell their neighbors in the Norkenzie area that
they will lose their backyards, if not their homes, so that more lanes
can be added to the highway system to facilitate speculative development
planned by an out of state hospital corporation masquerading as a "non-profit."
It is sad that this official malfeasance causes many citizens to be cynical
about the political process.

Peace Health's move is going to force the widening of Belt Line to at
least to 6 lanes to River Road, which is not in the TransPlan budget,
not even as a “future” project. Widening Belt Line in this
area would probably force the relocation of a number of families’
homes, with considerable community impact.

This widening would require the reconstruction of three overpasses -
Delta Highway, Norkenzie and Gilham Roads. If the new Norkenzie and Gilham
bridges are built next to the existing bridges (so that the roads can
remain open during construction), several homes might need to be demolished.McKenzie
Willamette hospital vs. EWEB

The $600 million cost of the two new hospitals here will be passed through
to local consumers and increase the cost of private health insurance in
Eugene-Springfield, said Bart McMullan, president of Regence BlueCross
BlueShield of Oregon, the state's largest health insurer. "Yes it
will, absolutely."
PeaceHealth and Triad officials have denied they'll charge significantly
more to pay for the new hospitals.
But few people appear to believe them. "The folks who are going to
pay are everyone in Lane County who ever needs to pay for hospital services,"
said Pinney.
Healey calls the hospitals switching cities here a "debacle"
that will cost consumers money and waste scarce health care resources.
Lane County has an estimated 50,000 uninsured people. If distributed evenly,
$600 million is about $12,000 for each uninsured person to buy health
insurance.
"It just seems like a whole lot of wasted health care dollars,"
said Healey. "How many people could get health care for that kind
of money?"